The Culture-Forming Potential of Family Narratives

Abstract

This editorial outlines the current state of familological studies in Poland, with particular focus on cultural, literary and gender studies. Being a complex research subject, the need for an interdisciplinary approach to the family in its many forms and models needs emphasising. The ongoing debate on the family model in Poland, including political discourse, builds the context for scientific familological studies across all disciplines. The changes proposed by the Polish Ministry of Education and Science, i.e., establishing a new field of study called ‘family studies’ is testament to the significance of the subject. However, it also forces one to reflect upon the temptation to politicise familological discourse in Poland. The edito­rial also reviews certain texts included in this issue of “Zagadnienia Rodzajów Literackich” [“The Problems of Literary Genres”], which is devoted to family literature and includes articles on family-themed novels (sagas), (auto)biographical works, reportage, pathogra­phy, family relationships and their artistic representations. When analysing the submitted articles and overall contribution of this issue, this editorial also considers both the reasons behind the predominance of women in familological studies and the issues that have been overlooked or insufficiently researched. The analysis implies that more attention should be devoted to the problems of non-heteronormative families and those that escape convention­al definitions based on non-biological or interspecies relationships.